In a drug discovery screening for searching materials, having a peculiar efficacy relative to a specific object, from a biochemical material, there is executed a systematic test for varying various conditions relative to a large number of analytes to be tested. For this reason, it is required to execute operations such as culturing, analyzing a huge number of samples with high precision and high efficiency, so that dedicated drug discovery screening apparatuses of various configurations have been conventionally employed.
As these drug discovery screening apparatuses, a plurality of dedicated apparatuses, for example, apparatuses combining a stocker for storing therein plates, which plates stores thereon liquid samples such as analytes, reagents, and so forth, a dispenser for dispensing the analytes, reagents on these plates, and an incubator for holding, culturing the plates, upon dispensing, in a predetermined environment, and so forth have been generally known.
FIG. 7(A) is a perspective schematic view showing a conventional dispenser with an incubator, as disclosed in JP 2002-202315A, FIG. 7(B) is a plane sectional view of the apparatus in FIG. 7(A), and FIG. 7(C) is a side sectional view of the apparatus in FIG. 7(A).
In FIG. 7(A), an incubator 1 is provided with a door 3 at the front surface thereof, and a port 4 through which the plate 9 is taken in and taken out (hereinafter referred to as plate take-in-and-out port 4) at the side surface thereof.
The plate in-out port 4 is provided with a shutter 5. A dispenser 6 is disposed adjacent to the incubator 1. An upper surface of a base 7 of the dispenser 6 forms a dispensing stage 8, and a plurality of plates 9 are placed on the dispensing stage 8. Each plate 9 is a container provided with a large number of wells, and each well stores therein a sample including a biochemical material, and so forth. An X-axis table 10 is disposed on the dispensing stage 8, and a dispensing head 11, on which a large number of dispensing chips 12 are mounted, is connected to the dispensing stage 8.
The dispensing head 11 moves within the dispensing stage 8 by driving the X-axis table 10, and executes dispensing operation, namely, it intakes a sample from one of the plates 9, which are placed on the dispensing stage 8, and discharges the sample to another plate.
A plate conveyance mechanism 13 is provided on the dispensing stage 8. The plate conveyance mechanism 13 comprises an X-axis table 14, a Y-axis table 15, a Zθ-axis table 16 and a transfer table 17 connected to the Zθ-axis table 16. The plate conveyance mechanism 13 can execute, when it is driven, an operation for gripping the plate 9 on the dispensing stage 8 by the transfer table 17, conveying the plate 9 inside the incubator 1 or taking out the plate 9 from the incubator 1 through the plate take-in-out port 4.
In FIG. 7(B), a housing 2 has a heat insulating wall, and an environmental conditions inside the housing 2 such as a temperature, humidity, CO2 concentration and so forth are kept to a predetermined condition by the environmental controller serving as an environment control unit (not shown).
A first opening part 2a is provided on the front surface of the housing 2 and is freely openable and closable by the door 3. A second opening part 2b is provided on the side surface of the housing 1, and is used as the plate take-in-out port 4. The second opening part 2b has a size capable of permitting the plate 9 to pass. The second opening part 2b is provided with the shutter 5, and the shutter 5 is vertically openable and closable and serves as a second door, and also it is automatically vertically movable.
Circular tables 21 are disposed inside the housing 2. A plurality,of plates 9 are disposed on the circular tables 21. Numbers for specifying the positions are assigned clockwisely to placing parts 21b of the circular tables 21.
As shown in FIG. 7(C), a plurality of circular tables 21 are vertically connected to each other inside the housing 2 by connection members 26 to from a rotary rack 20. Symbols A, B, C, . . . are assigned to the respective circular tables 21 and respective circular tables 21 are specified by these symbols.
Numbers for specifying respective placing parts 21b of the rotary rack 20 are fixed by combining the symbols A, B, C, . . . of the respective circular table 21 and the numbers of the respective placing parts 21b of the circular tables 21. The rotary rack 20 executes a rotary motion around a spline shaft 25. A lifting plate 28 executes a lifting operation. The lifting plate 28 for executing the lifting operation is guided by two slide guides 22.
An R-axis motor 30, an Z-axis motor 35 are provide with encoders 31, 36, respectively, which issue pulse signals representing number of rotations of the R-axis motor 30 and Z-axis motor 35. Accordingly, if these pulse signal are counted, present positions of the placing parts 21b, to which the number of rack is assigned, can be specified, and the plates 9 placed on the placing parts 21b of the rack having arbitrary numbers can be positioned at the plate take-in-and-out port 4.
Patent Documents
Patent document JP 2002-202315A
Patent document JP 1999-287809A
However, the conventional drug discovery screening apparatus connects dedicated apparatuses such as the foregoing stocker and dispenser by use of conveyance means such as a robot, and so forth, thereby executing delivery of the plates between respective apparatuses. Accordingly, there arise problems in that a large space is needed for the entire drug discovery screening apparatus, thereby increasing facility costs, and a testing operation efficiency is low because the delivery of the plates between individual apparatuses, which are spaced from each other, has to be executed multiple times.